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How would you use Carrion Crawlers meaningfully?
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8988151" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>The biggest things to do to make carrion crawlers truly scary again is to go back to their roots: a hit and a failed save causes paralysis that lasts 2-12 turns. NO ADDITIONAL SAVES.</p><p></p><p>That's really the biggest issue on a lot of 5E monsters-- almost all of them that have continuous effects allow for a new saving throw to be made at the end of every round to end the effect, then sometimes even immunity to the effect after the save has been made. I mean how scary is an Adult Red Dragon really, when its frightful presence requires merely a WIS save that is rather doable for a lot of PCs, and as soon as you get that one lucky roll you are now immune to its fear effect for the rest of the fight?</p><p></p><p>I understand exactly why the change has happened within the 5E game... they did their level best to move D&D further away from its roots of a tactical combat miniatures game to one that leans more into the current trend of narrative-based RPGs... where "winning the fight" isn't the entire premise of playing but rather just one of many things that matters. And thus a PC (and player) being removed completely for a fight and having to sit on their hands because their character "lost" one of these fights is not a game state the designers wish to inflict on people anymore. The party wins as a group and loses at a group by all staying active and seeing where the fight goes and the stories that lead into and out of the fight... not a couple characters win the fight while the others sit around twiddling their thumbs because their PC got paralyzed for 10 minutes and had to wait for the others to finally finish the battle.</p><p></p><p>So that's why the game current is as it is. But that being said... the easiest way to return to the days of yore and make fights against creatures like carrion crawlers scarier and more deadly is to just bring back our famous "Save Or Die" technique. A PC fails a save against a creature's monster ability? That's it. That was their one chance. They now suffer through it for its entire duration with no opportunity to "recover" during the remainder of the fight. That's how you'll make these creatures and fights truly scary again.</p><p></p><p>You send a dozen crawlers scurrying out of the walls of the cave to overwhelm the PCs. Once someone gets paralyzed and falls down... 3-5 of them remain swarming over the body and starts eating the crap of him, while the rest of the party has to deal with the remaining 6-8 or so. And hope against hope someone can break away and rescue their paralyzed friend before their face gets devoured, and that they don't get paralyzed too when they try.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8988151, member: 7006"] The biggest things to do to make carrion crawlers truly scary again is to go back to their roots: a hit and a failed save causes paralysis that lasts 2-12 turns. NO ADDITIONAL SAVES. That's really the biggest issue on a lot of 5E monsters-- almost all of them that have continuous effects allow for a new saving throw to be made at the end of every round to end the effect, then sometimes even immunity to the effect after the save has been made. I mean how scary is an Adult Red Dragon really, when its frightful presence requires merely a WIS save that is rather doable for a lot of PCs, and as soon as you get that one lucky roll you are now immune to its fear effect for the rest of the fight? I understand exactly why the change has happened within the 5E game... they did their level best to move D&D further away from its roots of a tactical combat miniatures game to one that leans more into the current trend of narrative-based RPGs... where "winning the fight" isn't the entire premise of playing but rather just one of many things that matters. And thus a PC (and player) being removed completely for a fight and having to sit on their hands because their character "lost" one of these fights is not a game state the designers wish to inflict on people anymore. The party wins as a group and loses at a group by all staying active and seeing where the fight goes and the stories that lead into and out of the fight... not a couple characters win the fight while the others sit around twiddling their thumbs because their PC got paralyzed for 10 minutes and had to wait for the others to finally finish the battle. So that's why the game current is as it is. But that being said... the easiest way to return to the days of yore and make fights against creatures like carrion crawlers scarier and more deadly is to just bring back our famous "Save Or Die" technique. A PC fails a save against a creature's monster ability? That's it. That was their one chance. They now suffer through it for its entire duration with no opportunity to "recover" during the remainder of the fight. That's how you'll make these creatures and fights truly scary again. You send a dozen crawlers scurrying out of the walls of the cave to overwhelm the PCs. Once someone gets paralyzed and falls down... 3-5 of them remain swarming over the body and starts eating the crap of him, while the rest of the party has to deal with the remaining 6-8 or so. And hope against hope someone can break away and rescue their paralyzed friend before their face gets devoured, and that they don't get paralyzed too when they try. [/QUOTE]
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